Madhya Pradesh High Court upholds death penalty for rape of 4-year-old - watsupptoday.com

Madhya Pradesh High Court upholds death penalty for rape of 4-year-old

Posted 09 Aug 2018 10:38 AM

Agencies
A LITTLE more than five months after a trial court sentenced a 22-year-old man to death for raping and murdering a four-year-old girl, the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday confirmed the capital punishment.

“This court has the social responsibility to make citizens know that law cannot come to the rescue of such a person on the basis of humanity. The extreme punishment may convey a message to these predators that it is not a soft state where criminals committing such serious crimes may get reprieve in the guise of humanity,’’ a division bench of HC Chief Justice Hemant Gupta and justice Vijay Kumar Shukla observed while dismissing the appeal filed by the convict, Vinod, alias Rahul Choutha.

He had raped and killed the girl on May 13, 2017. The victim’s body was found two days later.

Vinod was awarded capital punishment by the POCSO special court in Shahdol on February 28. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 5/6 of POCSO Act. The convict had moved an appeal against that conviction and sentence.

The court said, “Humanity is more in danger in the hands of persons like the appellant. We find that capital punishment awarded to the appellant is one of the rarest of rare cases where the capital punishment is warranted.”

The bench said, “He violated her and took her life within 3-4 hours of taking her with him. It is an act of extreme depravity when the appellant prompted a young child whose only fault was that she believed the appellant to be her well-wisher. Crimes against the girl child are on rise, (and) extreme punishment may deter other criminals…”